5 Things I Do NOT Have To Do As A Blogger

I have noticed ever since last year there were certain things I believed I had to do as a blogger. Things I thought I had to allow because I strive for patience, humility, and understanding. But sometimes I was letting my pearls be trampled. Sometimes, I stretched myself too thin, or let people take advantage of me. 

*Shakes head. No one deserves that.

And no blogger should ever go through burn out either. I hope these are helpful to you!

I Do Not Have To Accept Your Comment– This is the harshest thing I’m going to say. But my requirements are if you do not connect to the material I posted I do not have to approve your comment. If your words go from “I like this,” to, “check out my blog,” your comment may not be accepted. 

Especially as a Christian blogger, I see some comments purely focused on trying to stumble me up or others. A random question on the Trinity will appear on a flash fiction post or a piece of scripture about encouragement…nope. Not going to even deal with it. Sincerity goes a long way, being a troll won’t. 

Comments that lecture or belittle me will also not be accepted, and that took me a while to accept as a blogger because I thought that would stumble the person up. By…being honest or just not allowing it. Yep…I thought THAT, by me protecting myself, would be a stumbling block to someone else.  

If someone is stumbling us up, it’s okay to stop them. I’ve had to call people out for these actions. I’ve never named them or even said what gender this person was. Yet, as soon as I called people out for these actions they stopped commenting and unfollowed me. Why? Because they knew. If you are not doing these things, you are not guilty of them.

But if you purposefully are stumbling someone up, lecturing them, and trying to make them look like they know nothing, when you don’t know them…and then those actions get called out and you get convicted…take some time to just listen. 

I Do Not Have To Read/Comment On Every Post Everyone Writes– For many people, I do read every post. But this is not a requirement. When I was getting burnt out I was stressing myself out about not being able to catch up with everyone. This is completely ok!!! And I know most people do not read every single post of mine. Why am I restricting myself to something I’m okay with if others do not do?

We are not going to connect with every post every single person writes, and this is okay. Don’t force yourself out of fear if you do not read every post people will not read yours. That was my fear.

I Do Not Have To Have A Schedule–  I think having a schedule is really good! Don’t get me wrong. I think having a schedule and keeping it consistently can be very beneficial. For me, it helped me blog more. It helped me come up with ideas more and I struggled with coming up with ideas before.

But I was the only one who forced myself to keep to a particular schedule. No one else is forcing us to maintain a particular schedule on our blogs unless we write for someone.

I Do Not Have To Stay With A Series– Similar to a schedule, having a particular series we come up with may become too much. On this blog, my learning a country series was A LOT! I spent about three days if not more FOR ONE POST. The thing is I write multiple posts in a week for Inside Cup alone, and I’m also trying to write a book. I do not have the time or brain power for a series that originally was supposed to take place every week, to every two weeks. It was just too much. 

Some readers may be involved with a series, but this cannot be the reason you continue it. I’ve had some people tell me certain series they enjoyed, and I want to say this for those of you who enjoys a series of other bloggers. Let them know! Do not just like a post, but comment and be engaging to the discussion. When I finished my Alphabet Devotional series on Inside Cup, towards the end of it, when I was going through being burnt out, there were fewer comments and engagement. It was a lot to keep going. When the series finished, I received a handful of comments asking if I was going to continue something similar because people really enjoyed it. But I did not see everyone commenting or being engaged with the devotional as it was a community devotional. 

I totally get not everyone has something to say or people have crunch time so they cannot respond. We all have our reasons for things we do and do not do. But for a blogger and a series or even a post, the more engagement we see, the more our audience tells us they are involved, and they like it. I really thought people did not like the Alphabet Devotional as much as they did when I started it. But in truth, this was not the actual case. People did enjoy it. 

And it is okay to space out series and topics related to a series. Even if you only do one post a month from a series you’ve created, that’s okay. Some posts take time and you may not be able to keep up with it as much as you may want to.

I Do Not Have To Help Other Bloggers– This goes for everyone. You are not required to help every single person that wants help. You can choose to.

I do because I like it. I like helping other bloggers. I love discussing topics and ways we can become better bloggers and writers. Thus this post being one of them.

But this is not required, and why, when we ask for help, we should make sure we are not trying to take advantage of anyone. When I talk about this, I’m not purposefully trying to make anyone feel guilty, especially people I’ve helped. I talk about this, multiple times, because I see all too often people get taken advantage of. People do not know when to try on their own, and bloggers do not know when to say no without “looking bad” or feeling bad.

Helping others is something we get to do, not something we have to do. But never strain yourself and stretch yourself thin because people want help, advice, or for you to do everything for them. That helps no one. 

My favorite way of helping is when someone needs only one or two things and that’s it. They take what they’ve asked for and they go with it. And when people ask me things that I have not written about it is always an inspiration to write a post to help. 

We can learn from each other. We should not just take from each other.

---

I hope these were helpful to you!!! 

Monthly question- What is one tip as a writer or blogger, you wish you knew sooner? 

Main Blog: Inside Cup

Social- Twitter: T. R. Noble   Facebook Page: T. R. Noble   Pinterest: TRNoble77